In a thread ironically titled “A moment of silence for the victims in the UK,” dozens of Reddit’s self-described “Involuntary Celibates” mocked those who died in the explosion, dismissing most of them as “Stacies” or “future Stacies,” using the standard Incel slang for hot “normie” girls who only date alphas.

Some lashed out at Ariana Grande as well.

Those who bothered to try to justify their hatred did so on the grounds that “Stacies” — and women in general — hate incels and would be happy to see them suffer or die.

Yes, that’s right. His first response to this horrific tragedy was to feel sorry … for himself. And he wasn’t the only one.

A purer example of projection can scarcely be imagined.

Indeed, elsewhere in the same thread, a fellow incel echoed Nazi language in an attempt to explain why the victims in Manchester had it coming to them.

Some of the regulars took out their anger on the Redditor who started the thread in the first place, taking aim at his highly controversial opinion that no one deserves to be blown up in a terrorist act, “not even stacies. We need more love in this world not less.”

As the regulars saw it, this was a pathetic bit of “virtue signaling” from a man hoping that expressing bare sympathy for female victims of terrorism would “get his dick wet.”

(You can click on that last one to see a larger version.)

I can only repeat what I said in my post yesterday about “Saint Elliot’s Day,” that the Incels subreddit may be the scariest place on Reddit. It’s astonishing to me that the people who run Reddit feel it is in their own, or anyone else’s, best interest to provide a forum for such twisted hate speech — a forum that glorifies suicide and self-hatred and encourages the same misogynistic obsessions that led Elliot Rodger to commit his murderous rampage.

It’s not healthy to think that murder is funny, and any ideology that promotes such thinking is deeply destructive to everyone it touches.

I do agree that these men (and boys, because many of them I think are very young) are clearly hurting. And there are a lot of men in the world who are hurting and don’t know what to do about it.

But ultimately, your pain and loneliness is not anybody else’s responsibility to fix. If you want people to talk to, you are the person in control of that. Is it difficult? Are there a lot of people in the world who are jerks, or who just won’t get along with you or be interested in having a meaningful relationship (of any kind) with you? Yes, and yes. But you don’t have to play any odds. You don’t get just one chance at making a friend ever, and you don’t lose anything when you meet someone and don’t make friends. You just don’t give up, and eventually you will find yourself surrounded by people who care for you.

To give you a grasp on my perspective, I am a trans man, and I grew up in an abusive household. I have a number of disorders that make me, I think, very trying or exhausting to have as a friend sometimes. I spent my youth in a haze of confusion and pain, assuming I was unloveable – my parents didn’t love me; the kids at school all hated me.

I didn’t get bitter, I didn’t give up, and I didn’t stop trying to see the good in people. I found things to do with my life that entertained me – hobbies and skills – and I worked on being the best me that I could be. And now I have a totally different problem, in that my number of close friends has already outgrown the relatively small number I was comfortable with.

It has not been easy. It will never be easy. And maybe it isn’t fair that some of us are not given affection and have to fight harder and wait longer to find the people who think we are worthwhile, and it’s fine to feel that that is unfair and to be frustrated and upset about it.

But nobody can wave a magic wand and fix this for you. It’s something you have to see through yourself. And it certainly isn’t the fault of feminists, nor is it exclusively a men’s problem. There are plenty of young women out there who feel like they have nobody to trust or open up to, nobody who cares about them.

So many insightful and compassionate mammotheers – I am always glad to be able to read here even (or especially) when I have nothing really to add.
Just two recent examples of moments when I was muttering “yes, this“:
joekster:

There is something frightening in the fact that they assume everyone who acts like a decent human being is only doing it to get laid.
Equally troubling is the underlying assumption that acting like a decent human being should get one laid.

and
Collateral Thought:

If you’re worried that women complaining about misogyny or abuse or harassment or threats of violence or actual violence are speaking about you… I think you should spend some time reflecting on that.

Thank you both for taking the time to point out the difficulties and dangers of pick ups for trans people. I was just so angry when I wrote that comment. When I think of the struggles and pain even I’ve had to deal with in my privileged life and how much work I’ve put in to get to the point I’m at, it frustrates the hell out of me to see someone so unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their life.

It’s indicative of my privilege as a cis woman, though, that I didn’t consider trans people’s situation when I wrote my comment. On that side of things, I shall take several seats.

(I hadn’t even, I blush to admit it, thought about “trans panic” murderers getting out of being convicted. I really do live in a freaking bubble sometimes!)

@Dalillama

TERF is not synonymous with radical feminism,

You’re right – I think I was trying to just reflect the commenter’s choice of words.

and some of us most certainly are radical feminists.

So noted! But, er…not in the way of wanting all men dead or enslaved in that kind of stereotype some anti-feminists believe all feminists want? I mean, I’m sure there are some people who do think that way, it just seems out of character here…

It’s an important data point. I try not to remember it myself most days, but it’s relevant when looking at the relationship between men and trans people.

Almost all of the “Trans panic” situations are ones where the murderer knew the victim was trans beforehand. They’ve simply seized on a convenient lie to escape the consequences for premeditated murder.

There’s almost certainly at least one instance in history where a trans person has surprised their partner and been killed, but to that I say: “Trans panic” is not a defense. It’s shifting the prosecution’s case from “This asshole is a murderer and deserves to suffer for it” to “This asshole is a murderer and has no ability to respond to situations without murder, so we have a civic duty to remove them from society forever.” In any reasonable world, this would help the prosecution.

Normal people don’t respond to being lied to, or deceived, or just assuming something was one way and finding out it’s not with murder.

But that’s me being reasonable. For the trans person, especially the trans woman, trying to date or hook up, it’s enough to know that if they’re murdered, the man drenched in their blood will get away scot-free almost all the time.

There’s also that about a fifth of all americans would refuse to date a trans person, and a slightly larger percentage would refuse to be friends with a trans person.

So noted! But, er…not in the way of wanting all men dead or enslaved in that kind of stereotype some anti-feminists believe all feminists want? I mean, I’m sure there are some people who do think that way, it just seems out of character here…

Not speaking for Dali or anyone else, but I identify as a radical feminist. I don’t want all men dead or enslaved. Radical feminism, like radical anything, sees the current structure of society as unfixable, and posits that the solution to social ills is not to tinker around the edges, but to completely re-structure it from first principles on up. There’s nothing intrinsically trans-exclusionary about that, and there’s nothing particularly trans-inclusionary about non-radical feminism, so equating radical feminism with TERF gets my personal hackles up. It implies that I cannot be both radical and trans-inclusionary, and it also implies that someone who isn’t radical is automatically pro-trans, and neither of those things is true.

However, I also want to address one of the premises of your question, which is that radical feminists, or at least some non-trivial number of them, literally want to kill or enslave men and that we must assure you that we are not in that number. It’s firstly educational to listen to the feminists who do say that they want to see an end of men, and hear their reasons and rationale even if one doesn’t agree with that sentiment at all. Secondly, these feminists are extremely few in number, and not all of them are radical, so asking me to shibboleth my love of men starts to feel super-weird. Like, they’re not unicorns and I’m not going to deny they exist, but they aren’t numerous or influential. Anti-feminists talk about them way more than feminists do, and that holds for radical feminists in my experience.

Really interesting reading your thoughts and thanks so much for taking the time to go through all that! There are definitely some points I’d love to discuss, but I hadn’t meant to raise any hackles and the fact I did tells me I need to leave off for today. I’m operating on two hours sleep, as I said earlier, so rather than trying a line-by-line clarification of my own position (which I guess I’d classify as something like Trans-Inclusionary Intersectional Moderate Feminism, or TIIMF, if you will), I’ll leave it at that.

Please don’t take this as a dismissal of your good self! Rather, it’s a reluctance on my part to cause any further upset since I think we actually share a lot of ground. I just don’t seem able to explain myself properly ATM so it’s best for me to shut up 🙂

Since when does not wanting to date = considers trans persons hideous and/or freaks

Since there’s literally not a single reason for rejecting the idea of possibly dating a trans person that isn’t blatantly based on either sad/confused erections or fear of the other. Not a one. This isn’t a challenge btw. Don’t bother tryna come up with one. It’ll be shit, and it’ll just waste everyone’s time

You might as well say that sexual orientation itself ie. the preference for a ‘male’ or ‘female’ partner, is an entirely culturally conditioned choice then. This kind of debate has the potential to upset people so I’ll leave it there.

There is literally no reason to debate about transpeople at all. You can, but this isn’t a place for debating about us.

You shouldn’t think, “I’m gonna flex my debate skills” when a minority is discussing something. Just absorb it, unless you are, actually, in a debate team room or on a TV show or some other arena that fits the criteria necessary to host a debate.

I was going to try to translate the incelspeak from Numbskull to English, but fuck it. After having slogged through all that and the comments here too, all I can say is that I am sorry to share a planet, a species, and most likely a skin color with these fucked-up fuckless fucking fuckheads.

I wonder if those persons have already look for jobs.
If they hate being rejected by other persons, they are going to hate looking for a job too. And i wonder if they would wish mass murdering or terror attacks on the compagnies which have reject them.
Weirdwood Treehuger has put the finger on it : they do not want help, just pity. They are a kind of modern vampires who are not feeding on blood but on pity. And as they pity on themselves each others on boards like reddi, they autofuel their hate. All in all, it is some kind of sect (in the bad meaning of the term), an extremist sect of selfcentered suckers, and the problem is exterior elements of a sect can hardly have effect on its members. Neither what we can say, or even professional persons, could really have an impact on their way of thinking. Look at scientology : the majority of the ones who have quit have done it by themselves. I fear that it is the same thing here. Either they are able to break free by themselves, either it is nigh impossible to help them.

I always used to have an awkward moment on dates where I would tell them about myself before it got steamy… it always felt like taking a risk, but more of a risk to not do it. It never stopped any of them from doing the sex but I rarely got a forth date.

Movies like ace vetura pet detective (an otherwise great movie) had me convinced that men would be literally dry heaving if they found out and had done so much as kiss me. This only happened once and he was actually sucking my big toe at the time so I will forgive him. I did not get the sex with that one…

I didn’t bother to tell one of them as he was obviously just in it for sex (the sex was good).

I’m so glad to be married to my blue pill white knight. He gets sex, lots of sex for his white knightery… and he has skinny wrists!

So let’s get this clear, the solution to “no woman wants to touch me” is …
“I’ll be the rudest, rankest, my disgusting creature there is. I’ll abuse women. Demand their rights be taken away and generally make them think I’m a deplorable person …”.

Two main reasons: (1) ridiculous workload that has had me working 7 days a week since February and (2) the return of my old friend Depression, along with its sibling Anxiety; one of the worst I’ve had in years. I’m sure many people here know that particular drill.

I love my anime, but Steins;Gate and one or two others are in their own stratosphere of incredible. I get goosebumps just replaying certain scenes in my mind.
Tell me, how was Steins;Gate 0 on PS4? I must confess I haven’t played any of the games but would love to hear about them 🙂

(2) the return of my old friend Depression, along with its sibling Anxiety; one of the worst I’ve had in years. I’m sure many people here know that particular drill.

Oof, sorry to hear that. I know that feel, it’s been the same for me.

Tell me, how was Steins;Gate 0 on PS4? I must confess I haven’t played any of the games but would love to hear about them 🙂

They’re both v. good, and they’re also both available on the Vita if you happen to have one (I know, I’m one of twelve people in the world who does). I didn’t like 0 quite as much as the original, but that’s largely because it had far less Okabe x Kurisu stuff, and the interactions between those two are my lifeblood. The actual plot of it is still very compelling, and its structure is a bit more interesting than the first one because it has a branching narrative that actually has two different narrative paths you can take.

As games they come with the usual visual novel caveat of needing to go in expecting, well, reading rather than “gameplay”, but other than that I’d say that as long as what you dug about the anime was the plot and character interactions, the game does it even better than the anime did. For the first one, you kinda need a guide to get the True Ending, though, because a lot of the choices you need to make are random and none of the ones required for the True Ending are telegraphed so going through without one makes it an exercise in trial and error. 0 thankfully fixed that by making the choices mostly just correspond to the different story paths, and you just have to unlock the True Ending in that one by finding a specific one of the other endings first (which in-context actually kinda makes sense; yay, D-Mails!).

Just in case you’re not aware as I wasn’t, the entire premise of 0 is to explain the very end of Steins;Gate. Even though it technically takes place after the events of the original, it’s effectively sandwiched right into the five minute section after Okabe comes back to his present in the time machine.

And I have now realised that I’ve never eaten a macaron. Giant abyss of loss opened up. Help!

You’re not the only one. Care for a nice, consoling macaroon?

And I hear you re: depression/anxiety. My last major case of it was over 20 years ago, but whenever I get walloped with a sense of being overwhelmed, I find myself wondering if the Beast is back. Luckily, the two biggest telltale signs — suicidal ideation and a burning feeling in my veins — aren’t there. But I ain’t gonna lie, sometimes the dread of the Beast is damn near as bad as the Beast Itself. Hope it lets go of you soon.

Macarons is the original French spelling, right? Either way, I’ve never had one and I am sad about this. Apparently there’s a wee bakery in the neighbourhood that makes good ones so I will visit them 🙂

@dslucia,

Thanks for the run down. It sounds brilliant. One of the (million) things I liked about the anime was how they didn’t go down the “love triangle between Okabe/Kirisu/Mayuri” line. I don’t know about the manga?

@dslucia (again)
@Bina
@Oogly

Wow, thanks for your comments. You’re amazing. This particular time really caught me by surprise. New meds are helping, as is exercise and meditation (and cats, of course).
Oogly, where have you been hiding Vicky? She’s gorgeous <3

@Mish
It’s great that you’re doing better Mish! Vicky doesn’t like to sit still and she’s very energetic. Getting her to sit still long enough for a photo op is like asking her to stop shaking her body after getting washed, it takes a while but in the end it’s worth it : )

The visual novel has a bunch of “what-if” ‘bad’ endings that feel like they’re approaching tearing down the wallpaper of how so many VNs effectively have harems for the protagonist, but I’m not sure they go far enough so it mostly just ends up being very, uh, unhealthy for everyone involved. Suzuha’s ending, arguably the darkest one, is the only one that I’d argue actually finishes on a positive note. But technically none of those endings are canon anyway, and otherwise the anime followed the True Ending route so the game treats the characters largely the same way.

Hey! A friend of mine turned me onto this site, and I’m slowly making my way through back blog posts… usually I lurk and read, but the Incel thing I have to comment on.

WAAAAAY back when, I was a semi-active member of GAFF (God Awful Fan Fiction) and later WGW (Why, God, Why) both of which were forums mostly for discussing WTFtastic and just plain old bad fanfiction, but later spread to discussing other terrible ideas, whether they were funny or truly terrifying. Our whole forum got into it with another forum called Love-Shy, which is where I learned about what “Involuntary Celibacy” was… which really did make me scratch my head, cause, you know, everyone’s had their dry spells, right? What’s the big deal?

That forum was probably the biggest cesspool of hate I’ve ever seen in my life. It wasn’t just like strategies to get laid, which may or may not have been repulsive (trying straight up dating v. trying to bang drunk women), or tips to improve or a board to commiserate–which is what I initially thought. No, it was about how they are entitled to sex, how women don’t give it up, and if women don’t give it up then why should they live, and on and on and on… cesspool of hate.

For the person who said they are dangerous earlier in the comments… you are exactly right on that. They are dangerous. A couple of their members threatened bodily harm to our admin and others (granted, we were mostly a bunch of sarcastic fucks too, but even those of us who tried to open a discussion to understand were threatened), and reading the threads… it was horrifying. There wasn’t only advice on how to get women drunk or in compromising positions, but also how to stalk, and IIRC correctly, how to murder or kidnap and get away with it. Those were the most extreme examples, of course, but even the not-so-horrifying posts were laced with seething hatred. That was when I stepped away and was like, “Nope, screw that.” Even glancing at the old posts on the wayback machine makes me upset and angry.

While I believe we should treat people with kindness and decency on like even the most basic level, there are people who are dangerous threats, and generally they are extremists. These people are definitely in that category.

Deploying the term in the way these guys do is just another example of their lack of belief in altruism. To them, everybody is just as cynical and craven as they are. Nobody is sincere in what they say, so they must be espousing opinion simply for the adulation of peers

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.